Roaring about life since 2009

It took a whole study to figure this out? Good gods, everyone knows that famous quote which has been beaten to death regarding politics – “Power corrupts.” The problem with Democrats is that their ideology makes it so much easier to become powerful by believing that the government has the power to fix and legislate every little problem and facet of American life. If, on the other hand, you believe in a limited sphere of government intervention and action, restraint is the word of the day. You have less ability to make these deals because you have less power, and if you want to get elected again, you have to prove you talk the talk and walk the limited government walk. Here’s the article from CATO:

There is a new study from a couple of academics at the University of Michigan, who found significant relationships between lobbying and bailout money, as well as a greater chance of getting bailouts depending on a bank’s ties with either the Federal Reserve or key members of Congress. Hopefully, people across America will draw the obvious conclusion and realize that big government is inherently corrupting[.]

Like I said before in a previous post, Obama is a classic product of the corrupt Chicago Democratic Machine. Bribes, kickbacks, coercison and spin is the name of the game. Don’t believe me? For another fun one about the Healthcare fiasco, look at what the Dems had to do to drum up (bribe?) enough support in Nebraska!

Nelson also won several other concessions, most notably a commitment from the federal government to fully fund his state’s expanded Medicaid population. All states get full federal assistance for the first three years of the bill — but Nebraska would be the only state getting full assistance afterward. One Democratic official put the cost to the federal government at $45 million over a decade.

Come on guys, this isn’t compromise and debate, this is railroading a gigantic and detrimental piece of legislation through before anyone has any idea what the hell it is and who will really benefit. Voting under the cover of darkness is hardly the sunshine Obama promised on the campaign trail. But to be fair, he also said we would immediately withdraw from Afghanistan.

I admit, I’m an amateur poetry-lover and few do it better than the Japanese. While I was reserching Shinto on SacredTexts.com, I came across this book a few months ago and actually printed the whole thing out and guerrilla-bound it. Which is basically a 3-hole punch and some yarn, haha. Take a look, there’s some artful use of language even in those translations.

I took to reading a few pages every night before bed, and was struck by how much could be contained in so little space. Kind of a linguistic minimalism, ala Joy Division or John Cage in music. Even though Germanic languages are a bad fit for syllable-based poetry, I tried my hand at writing some shortrune-poems in the Haiku style, trying to use a rune as the subject instead of a season, as is the usual Japanese custom. Here are a few of my attempts at “Asaku” in the 5-7-5 syllable structure. Most of them were written on tour last June 2009, while we were driving through the Arizona desert at night.

Oh great, now I have more proof that sleep is good and that one of my favorite passages in the Havamal makes even more sense than I gave it credit for. I’ve been working on living by this one and the ones about drinking, it’s kind of hard…there’s just so much to do in a day.

23.
The unwise man is awake all night,
and ponders everything over;
when morning comes he is weary in mind,
and all is a burden as ever.

I’ve been making it a habit to stay up for at least two days at a time over the last few months just to work on things, whether it be music, bass, songwriting, computer stuff, reading, homework or whatever. But maybe it wasn’t worth it, according to this study. I know for a fact that a lot of people I know, musicians and artists and other creative types, pull hours just as weird as mine either by choice or by necessity. Just remember that sleep is apparently a boon to creativity. Cool. Thanks, Havamal!

Sleep, it turns out, is imperative for coming to new insights and being able to see new creative solutions to old problems because while you sleep, your mind can discover hidden or novel connections between seemingly random pieces of information. This process not only helps you find the meaning in what you have learned, but by forging connections among differing pieces of information, the odds that a creative idea or insight will surface increases.

If you keep toiling over a problem you can easily wind up with tunnel vision that keeps you from finding an appropriate solution. Sleep removes the blinders and helps “reset” your brain to look at things from a different perspective, which is crucial to creativity.

One could come to the conclusion that sleeping is essential for wisdom, since most knowledge or information alone, without meaning or context, is useless. But by discovering the relationships between bits of information, it can help you can make better decisions in the future.

“Sleeping on it” may indeed be the most practical solution when you’re faced with a tricky problem.

I just really wonder about people when I read stories like this. Good gods, the damn thing is 90 pounds.

The infamous iron sign bearing the Nazis’ cynical slogan “Arbeit Macht Frei” that spanned the main entrance to the former Auschwitz death camp was stolen before dawn Friday, Polish police said.

The heavy 5-meter-long (16-foot-long), 40-kilogram (90-pound) iron sign at the former Nazi death camp in southern Poland where more than 1 million people died during World War II was unscrewed on one side and torn off on the other, police spokeswoman Katarzyna Padlo said.

Well you learn something new every day, because I had no idea there was a whole day dedicated to the Bill of Rights! Apparently that day is today, December 15! Hooray! CATO Institute just keeps on giving, I found out about it here, and the article is also a brief summary of the first ten amendments.

So which Amendment is your personal “favorite?” Which one could you do without? I think I’m torn between I and II, but the intense resurgence of attention given to the 10 Amendment is pretty refreshing.

Well that’s just great. Limit private pay and jack up Federal pay, as if the latter isn’t outrageously bloated already. It’s almost as if they’re trying to say something about where their priorities lie. Is there an economics textbook anywhere within 20 miles of Washington, D.C.? One not co-written by Marx, Mao, Keynes, Stalin and Obama?

I got a call this morning from Rasmussen Reports, and being the opinionated and dutiful citizen I am, I said my peace in their 15 minute telephone survey. It was kind of fun actually, knowing my opinion was being counted. I think the final result is here, and I’m proud to be a part of the group who Strongly Disapproves of the job President Obama is doing.

I got questions on Obama’s overall approval rating, whether I was conservative/Republican, a series on offshore drilling (which I don’t know too much about, but to which state’s rights is my default answer), healthcare and its effect on prices and quality of healthcare, and a few other assorted topics mentioned below.

I was surprised by the lack of any questions about global warming or this Climategate fiasco. Here’s a good primer on Climatgate and climate change overall posted by a writer from the CATO institute today. It’s a much more complex issue than these absolutist pundits are screaming about. I personally believe that the climate change is primarily a natural occurence, and any human impact is negligible and hardly catastrophic. Does that make me any less of an environmentalist? Of course not, I still believe in the principles of responsibility, conservation, stewardship and property rights.

One of the best questions was the series of 3 about Obama’s ethical behavior and whether he is more or less ethical than previous presidents. Obviously I answered less ethical than previous presidents, because you’re not anything in Chicago unless you’re part of the Democratic corruption machine. Obama’s a smooth operator though, I have to give him that.

Moral of the Story: If you ever get a call about a public opinion survey, don’t hang up, it’s actually pretty fun!

About Me

Hey everybody my name is Mike Magnusson, also known as the Minnesota Grizzly Bear and I’ve been adding a healthy *roar* to conservative commentary since 2009.

I’m a registered Republican, liberty-lover , free market advocate, NRA member and a proud follower of Asatru (what we believe in a nutshell: Gods, Family, Responsibility). I’m an undergraduate student ready to graduate in 2010, and my interests are